Guinness Prays

This was Guinness' prayer on Friday... I guess he enjoys playing with her after school.

Dear Lord,
Thank you for this wonderful day. Thank you for my family. Thank you for my sister; she is so nice. Thank you for this food. Amen.

Blackberry monster

There are blackberry bushes growing wild all over the place here, and although I was 99.999% sure they were blackberries I was leary of eating them because, you know, wilderness street sense would say to never eat a berry you don't know for sure.  Today as we were doing a practice bike ride to Gemma's school and we saw people with buckets picking and this lady (originally from Saskatoon) assured me they were fine and so it was berry game on.

We ate seaweed at the park (a gift from Annabelle) and on the way home stopped at a bush to fill up the little trays the seaweed comes in.

1) blackberries are Dangerous!!!!!! Very thorny, all the way down to the stem to the berry, and on the underside of the leaves.  Ouch!
2) blakberrries are Tall!
3) blackberries will make your mouth black.


The kids were instructed to hold their little containers of berries as we biked home.  Upon arrival we had Gemma and a full tray, and Guinness with a empty tray and a mouth full of black.

In Canada...

Guinness has made some astute observations about Canada. I wish I could remember them all, but I'll do my best. 1) there are no scooters in Canada, or bikes. Just cars. 2) people speak English here. And they all look the same. (that's a bit a strange one, eh?) 3) the houses all look the same. (he said this one afternoon after driving through one of those condo neighborhoods, Erindale or somewhere.) 4) in Canada it is light at the nighttime. This one is throwing both my kids for a loop, going to bed when it is still light out. They are constantly asking, "is it nighttime? Is it afternoon?". I think they are still a bit in travel mode, where night and day and hours and minutes blend together. He is loving the backyard and being outside. It's been a really fun filled first week in Canada.

Guinness' dream...

Guinness and I were biking home from 101 the other day and he was hugging and kissing my back in the bike seat.  I told him he was being such a sweetheart, and he said, "It's my greatest dream to be a sweetheart!!!"


Awww!

Sandwich?

Guinness and I were wolfing down a mix and match lunch at home today, and he said, "A peanut butter, cheese and hummus sandwich.  That would be good."

I LIKE living in Taiwan

We've had some bedtime discussions this week about our move.  We've been open and clear to the kids, and as gentle as we can, that we are staying in Canada this time, and they've both started talking about this more this week, I think as school is ending and the moving sale, etc.  Guinness says things like;

"I'm Taiwanese." 

"I like living in Taiwan."

"Are we going to Canada?  And we will stay in Canada?  For a long time?"


We've gone through dialogues like this several times.  He will say goodbye to his babysitter today, and his babysitter's son, who is like a brother to him.  I hope we see them one more time.  It's all the 'last time' things coming up that are making my heart heavy.

Awesomeness all around

Well, we had a miracle today: Guinness POOPED ON THE POTTY!!!!

Yes, it finally happened.  He has done amazinginly well with peeing, picked it up quickly and gets to the potty on time.  He's been doing that for over a week.  But the Big Job; well, no luck.  Until today.  We were playing downstairs and he had a 'tummy ache', and since he hadn't gone all day I was feeling optimistic.  Up we went and he made the noise and pushed, but was sure nothing had come out.  Until he stood up and looked in the potty, and Hurray!!!  (He has been sitting on the potty when he think he has to go, but nothing has happened so far.)  He was completely ecstatic, jumping up and down and cheering.  We went back down to get Gemma and her friend and headed off to the stationary store for toys.  We needed to celebrate!  Hopefully now that he has done it once, it will become more natural.

Also, the title of the post is 'awesomeness' because both the kids have used the word 'awesome' in some interesting ways this week.  Before supper Guinness was playing with his ball in the living room, which is a no-no, so we sent him to his room.  He ran off, so excited.  And about 2 minutes later he came out saying, "I did something AMAZING!!!  I hit my cup of water and it spilled ALL OVER MY ROOM.  It's so AWESOME!!!!!!!"  We were like, uh, why is that awesome???  And he so thrilled for some reason, because it was all over the floor and his bed and everywhere.  "Isn't that awesome, mom????"

Uh, right :)